


In A Dark Dark Wood There Is a Dark Dark Cabin

by gala_apples



Series: An Alphabet of Teen Wolf Crossovers [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV), The Cabin in the Woods (2011)
Genre: Apocalypse, Arsonists, Clowns, Crossover, F/M, Horror, Monsters, Scarecrows, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-24
Updated: 2015-04-24
Packaged: 2018-03-25 14:37:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3814189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gala_apples/pseuds/gala_apples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four times the McCall Pack went to a cabin in the woods, and one time the cabin came to them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In A Dark Dark Wood There Is a Dark Dark Cabin

Halfway through their first evening of their long weekend getaway, Kira shouts from the kitchen. “Guys? The floor just opened.”

Stiles pushes himself off the raggedy living room rug where they’ve got a good game of poker going and wanders over to her. Sure enough there’s a big ass hole in the floor, and a set of steps leading down. Unlit, of course, and pitch black, because why would werewolves care about the shoddy vision of humans? 

“This is some dead relative of Derek’s cabin, right?” Stiles asks rhetorically. “What do you want to bet it’s another weirdly placed completely inconvenient Hale vault?”

Scott and Malia shrug. Lydia doesn’t bother to reply.

“And we’re doing down, right?” Stiles is pretty sure that’s rhetorical too. Since when has Scott’s Pack ever not explored potentially dangerous hideyholes?

**Congrats DNA Archives for betting on scarecrows. Buy us a drink! -Sitterson**

Stiles and Kira are the only ones left. 

At this point the idea of his dad waiting for Sunday evening to make fishing jokes is the only thing that’s keeping Stiles from surrendering. He can’t imagine living without Scott. They’ve been best friends since they had four parents between them. Since just after potty training, when daily naps were still a mandatory part of the daycare’s ironfisted regime, not an occasional weekend luxury. But his father’s life without himself is even more unfathomable. If it wasn’t cheeseburger cheeseburger cheeseburger cholesterol spike heart attack dead it would be too many doubles lack of sleep lack focus bad guy guns drawn shot dead. No, regardless of how excruciating this scene is, Stiles has to hold on. He has to make it out.

He can’t take the silence. They retreated back towards the cabin after the road collapsed, all four of them aware that being out in the open was too dangerous. Only three of them made it inside. Stiles could really use Malia’s social incompetence or Scott’s rallying words right now. Without them it’s just a cyclone of blame and horror and reminding himself his dad needs him to make it through the night. Everything started at sunset, if they can just make it to sunrise...

“It’s my fault she’s dead.” Not just dead, but disemboweled. The leather glove of that scarecrow ripped through her belly like it was tissue paper.

Kira shakes her head. Her blood drenched hair crackles. She got a bit closer than Stiles did, trying to pull Lydia out of the fray. The thick coating of drying blood would be proof, if Stiles needed it. If he didn’t see every second each time he closes his eyes.

“You weren’t the one to try on the straw hat.”

They don’t know for a fact that that’s what caused this. No one brought any lore texts, the entire point of the long weekend was to get away from monsters and death. It just seems likely. Anything can be a talisman, if it falls into the right hands. Kate’s proof enough of that.

Besides, even if they are right and Kira asking if Scott was into the farmer look was what started the horrorshow that tonight has become, it doesn’t matter. It’s still his fault. Scott and Kira wanted a weekend alone as much as he and Malia did. They came of their own free will. Lydia on the other hand was essentially shanghaied. 

“I invited her. I was being a jerk about the lakehouse and how the cabin couldn’t possibly compare to her eternal upperclass jetsetting ways. I think she agreed to slum it just to get me to fuck off.”

Any more self incrimination is quieted to a halt with the beginning of the sound. 

The Sound. 

It shouldn’t be intense enough for capital letters. It’s just surration, like the side of a hand gliding on paper when you write, or adjusting under a duvet. But Stiles has heard that sound three times tonight. Any second now the swarm of scarecrows will rush in. Hay will poke out from hemlines, faces will be muted underneath cotton bandaging, uncomfortably like the early days of the nogitsune. They’ll be silent and quick until they’ve captured who they want. That’s when they rip the person -Malia Scott Lydia- open. That’s when they steal the innards to put inside their plaid shirts. 

Scott tried killing one. It only took Scott ripping its pants for the scarecrow to fall apart. But then, as if with darkest magic, a wind whipped up. It twirled into a tornado and on the other side the scarecrow was whole again. Malia trying to rip one’s head off before him did nothing. Lydia attempting to set one on fire after him did nothing. They’re indestructible and there’s nothing left to do but see who they come for this time.

**Story dep. Monsters taking out teenage monsters is only a good story if the sacrifices actually _die_. Do better next quarter or you’re all fired -Sitterson**

The basement is full of shit. Absolutely crammed. Derek’s cousin must be a fucking hoarder. Normally Stiles is all about spying on people’s lives. It’s the age of the internet, privacy is a construct. But going through all of Random McRandom Hale’s stuff could take a fucking lifetime and they have better shit to do. There are lakes to swim in and fireplaces to cuddle beside, and hey, there are bedrooms to get busy in. Lydia might get a little lonely, but Stiles is pretty sure Malia would be down for company. He pretty much lucked out in the comfortable-with-her-desire girlfriend department.

Casting his gaze around haphazardly, he finds an object that actually matters to him. Stiles takes the few steps needed to pick up a bullhorn balanced carefully on an oversized inflatable ball. He flicks the toggle and stuffs his face into the narrow edge of the cone. “Attention shoppers. The weirdass basement closes in five minutes. Please wrap up your transactions.

“Can you entertain yourself for like ten minutes?” Kira calls back. “There are some books I wanna browse through.”

Stiles raises the megaphone up again. “Fine.”

Thankfully Lydia isn’t much of a thrift shopper either. It only takes her a few minutes to get thoroughly bored and come upstairs with him. That’s why they’re alone when Lydia screams. Not a stub my toe scream or a snake in the bathroom scream. A full out banshee scream. Stiles spins in a circle as quickly as he can, trying to spot the danger. It’s outside. It has to be. He and Lydia -and Scott, Malia and Kira as they bolt up the stairs- are the only people in this open concept, rustic piece of shit cabin. The evil giggle that starts up beyond the front door is only confirmation.

Lydia’s continued scream is the only warning before the wooden door crashes open. A sickly grey washed out clown stands in the frame for a moment, the jagged peaks of his wig looking like red stakes. Then he squats and somersaults further inside. His shoes don’t bend when he rolls over them, they arch like he actually has three foot long feet. It’s not until he stands up in the middle of the room that Stiles notices the important part. The clown’s red jacket is spotted brown with dried blood. Stiles is almost not surprised. Nothing good ever happens. Of course there’d be a serial killer with a clown fetish in their mountain retreat.

There’s a silent stand off for a minute. All of the supes are prepared to do damage, but there’s no need to make the first move if Stiles’ paranoia is just a tad too bloody-minded and the clown is merely some Meredith-like crazy person. Then the clown laughs evilly and comes at Malia. Stiles backs away and grabs his cell phone. There’s no way Malia and Scott and Kira can’t handle this, and his task is important too.

Reception is down, but that’s fine. Thanks to some serious, burdensome conversations with Dad before they left, Stiles has a very reliable back up plan.

Meanwhile, in the land of three feet to the left and right the fuck now, Scott and Kira have managed to get the clown out of the cabin, maybe plus a wrenched/broken arm, and are now pulling the couch in front of the door. It’s not a permanent strategy. The Hale cabin has a ton of windows, and if the clown’s as much an acrobat as he is a gymnast it shouldn’t be that hard to leap through one. But it’s a start.

“The next time it comes we’ll fight it off again.”

“We could kill him?” Malia suggests. Stiles can’t blame her. Though she’s already healing, he _did_ stab her, and that’s worth some revenge. But the scene isn’t quite there yet, in his opinion. Objectively speaking, killing the freak probably wouldn’t be legal self defense. Not yet, not without a documented wound.

“Look. I promised to call my dad every day at ten. If I don’t, and I don’t answer his call? You know he’ll send Parrish out. And that’s if he doesn’t come himself. We’ve already gotten him in so much crap that I’d rather not make him bury a corpse in the mountains. We just have to wait it out. Break his legs if he comes back.”

Scott bites his lip, no doubt thinking about the shit he’s gotten his own parents into. “Fine. We’ll fight it off.”

Lydia looks like she wants to argue but with Scott and Malia on his side it’s a majority.

Twenty minutes later Lydia screams. Death is coming again. Stiles grabs his bat, Kira her sword, and Scott and Malia shift. It’s going to be a long night. 

**I don’t know who told the Wranglers they were getting overtime for tracking Remus beyond Facility grounds, but it was a lie. Do your job, like the rest of us. -Sitterson**

“Diary of Patience Bruckner. Today we felled-” 

Stiles half sprints over to Kira and slaps the journal out of her hand. “Don’t read someone’s diary. I have eternal trauma from the time my babysitter read my pathetic baby-Stiles blog.”

“Since when do you care about public humiliation?” Lydia asks, a grin taking the venom from the words. Stiles wouldn’t have taken them to heart anyway. He knows the difference between a friendly insult and an insult from someone who doesn’t like him.

Scott laughs. “No, it’s true. He tried to get his dad to arrest her for harassment.”

“How do I look?” 

Stiles turns around to see Malia in a fur coat. The shade of grey that it is, Stiles would guess rabbit. He wonders if the fur still smells like the animal it came from. None of his heightened senses friends have been in a position in which Stiles could ask before.

“Like Evan is about to start foaming at the mouth.” Kira replies.

“That’s that PETA prick, right? I don’t get why they think they’re so great. They think milk is racist, they think carnivorous pets should be fed a vegan diet, they tried to ruin Pokemon, and all their commercials are kinda rapey.” Stiles may have spent a night or two researching the vegan lifestyle when he first co-opted his dad’s menu plan.

“I like it,” Malia says obstinately, tugging the sleeves of the fur further down with the tips of her fingers. “I’m always cold and this is warm.”

Lydia -who’s been grimacing hard the last minute- speaks up. “If you want a fur coat I can get you one, but don’t just put on box in the basement clothing. You have no idea who this belongs to or if they had scabies.”

“Fine,” Malia sighs but she takes off the jacket. Stiles, being the goddamn gentleman that he is, peels off his hoodie and tosses it to her. 

Kira grins wickedly. “If we’re all taking clothes off here, why not go for a midnight swim?”

Scott’s grin turns lecherous, something Stiles doesn’t see often. “Skinny dipping!”

Kira smiles back and takes his hand. “When better to check off the bucket list?”

Back upstairs Stiles starts looking through their fridge sized Tupperware box of ‘shit we might need this weekend’ for the intense police issue flashlights he borrowed from the station. Maybe the supes can get away with animal-sight and moonlight, but he and Lydia will need real, artificial light. The plastic chest is emptier than it was earlier, thanks to all their food now being on the counter. It’s also a lot messier; none of them are particularly into folding clothes or stacking neatly. 

Malia’s just joined him to bug him to go faster when a wolf in the nearby forest howls. Stiles can’t help himself. He howls back, staring at his best friend and girlfriend as he does. Kira and Lydia both roll their eyes.

Stiles doesn’t even have time to restart before it howls again.

“Is it me or is it closer,” Lydia asks the room.

Stiles has _fuck of a lot closer_ on his tongue when the window shatters, shredding the curtain as it does. Barrelling towards him is a distinctly pissed off werewolf. Stiles’ heart rabbits but he ignores the hysteria and the panic. He ignores the instant feeling of being impotent -the weak link to which things always happen to- and wrests control into his hands the best way he can. He grabs the baseball bat in the supplies box. Stiles slams it as hard as he physically can, torquing like a motherfucker. He didn’t want the bite from Peter. He never thought to ask it Derek or Scott. There’s no way he’s getting it from this asshole. 

The swing barely connects because Scott and Malia are working together to take down the rogue. Stiles falls back with the bat, not wanting to hurt his friends accidentally. Either could easily recover from a broken arm, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay.

Scott flashes his eyes and roars. The wolf stops struggling. God bless True Alphas, Stiles fervently thinks.

“You don’t understand,” it slurs between fangs, face still wolflike. “They haven’t let me out of the cage in years.”

“My friends and I will help you get away from whoever is caging you.’

“It’s not that easy.”

“My friends have fought everything.” Despite not really giving a shit about this guy’s plight, considering he attempted to maul him, Stiles has to nod at the truth in Scott’s statement. Kira’s sword backs up the claim pretty well, too.

**Bio-Med needs to recompile the Dolls. This set of sacrifices destroyed them. -Sitterson**

Stiles is trying to decide what he wants to poke at first, when something even more interesting captures his attention. Lydia, who as far as Stiles knows is all about designer items and has never been to a garage sale in her life, has picked up a porcelain faced doll and is making it dance from side to side. It’s intriguing, especially when she notices him noticing and snaps “what” at him. 

“I just didn’t think you’d be into touching someone’s manky dolls.”

“I had one of these when I was a kid.”

“Back when you were Ariel?”

“Well I’m sure you were Daffy or Gaston,” she throws back at him.

“Lydia, that wasn’t a cut. Everyone had a character when they were a kid. At least yours was classy and French and shit. Also Gaston was a dick, and I would never. Scott and I liked to play Darkwing Duck.”

“Do you want to take it upstairs and play?”

“Eat me Stilinski.”

Stiles shakes his head. “Again, not being a sarcastic shit. I have lego in my room, ask Scott. If you wanna take your mind off things with childhood toys I am down.”

“I don’t think I’m quite at the point of age regression therapy, thanks.” It’s still rude, but no longer defensive. Stiles considers that a win.

Hours later children’s cartoons and playthings are the last thing on Stiles’ mind. How can he think about anything else except the stunning, sweaty and nude body in his bed? Stiles hates everything about Brunski and Eichen House, but a part of him will always be traitorously grateful for the chance to meet Malia.

“You ever want to have a threesome with Scott?”

Ever since the Peter omission he and Malia have had a pact of complete honesty. Sometimes it leads to moments like this, but that’s okay. Stiles has always been into blunt.

“Uh, not really? You do?”

Malia shrugs languorously, perky bare breasts rolling with the movement. “Dunno. I’m just really incredibly horny and part of me’s saying bang the lacrosse player.”

“ _I’m_ a lacrosse player.”

Malia shrugs again. “It’s nothing personal.”

It kind of is, but Stiles gets his girlfriend. “Anyway, you’d have to wait until he breaks up with Kira. Or see if you can get her interested in a foursome, or a swinging thing, I guess.” Kira’s hot. Stiles would go beneath the belt if Scott wouldn’t hate him for it.

“Yeah.” She pulls off his dick and pads to the adjoining bathroom. It’s a Jack and Jill, the other door opens to Kira and Scott’s room. Hopefully the late night running water won’t bother them. Some people would be surprised that a girl who lived in the woods for eight years likes to be as freshly showered as possible, but Stiles remembers her at Eichen House, desperately wishing she could get warm. His unsolicited opinion is showers remind her of who she is. He hears the soft thud of her climbing into the shallow tub of the shower followed by the screech of old taps turning. 

All of a sudden she bellows. Stiles starts to scramble out of bed but Malia’s out of the bathroom before he can even get the sheet untangled.

“The shower dripped this shit on me!”

Stiles pokes a finger into the yellowy filth coating her hair and shoulders and drooling down. It’s sticky. Between the colour and the texture Stiles has to guess pine resin. Which brings the next question- the hell is wrong with the water tank? How freakin’ cracked is it to get so much sap in it? Did anyone drink this? Stiles strips the condom off, puts his boxers on and walks into the hall. He calls out, “did anyone drink the water earlier?”

“Stiles it’s like one am!” Kira shouts.

“It’s important! Did anyone have a glass of water?”

“Stiles, what?” Lydia comes out of her bedroom with a robe on.

“The water’s tainted. Did anyone bring bottled water? Because if no one did we need to go home.”

“I’m going to rise off in the lake,” Malia announces, leaving their room fully naked. She passes Stiles and Lydia and exits out the front door. Stiles could join her in skinny dipping. He could also fix the sheets on the bed so they’re not all wrinkled and lumpy underneath them when they go for round two.

Halfway back to his room, Malia screams. Stiles runs, the rest of the pack with him in various shades of undress. There’s a man in a business suit standing beside Malia. The doll mask hides his face but the aura of sadistic glee is more than visual, and unmistakable.

“I don’t know who you are but we’ve got the cabin this weekend.”

Stiles tenses. How does Scott not see that this person isn’t someone to be trusted? Stiles has the Peter/Gerard/Matt/Jennifer feeling and he hasn’t been wrong yet. The man doesn’t answer. He pulls something out of his pocket that Stiles can’t see until it’s too late. There’s a pinprick of light which blooms as it -a match- falls onto the slick coating Malia. The resin bursts into flames instantaneously.

Everyone’s next move goes down to their natures. Stiles runs forward with no plan, just knowing he has to do something. Scott runs with werewolf speed and tackles Malia to force her to stop drop and roll to save her. Kira runs forward with kitsune agility to attack. Lydia stays back near the cabin to be back up. 

Kira shows no mercy. The dagger Stiles didn’t even know she had on her slits the stranger’s throat. He doesn’t bleed blood. He bleeds gasoline. Stiles is so goddamn sick of the stench of gasoline.

“We should assume there are more,” Lydia says grimly.

“What?”

“That much sap doesn’t just get into a water tank naturally. They spent the effort to boobytrap the house and lure us to an assumed death. When have we ever faced a single enemy at once?”

“Do the assassins count?”

“You just used a plural, so no,” Lydia snaps.

“So what do we do?”

Stiles crosses his arms over his bare chest, then immediately abandons the position to gesture as he speaks. “Well whatever demonface is under that mask, it bleeds gasoline. So it’s not human. It’s not human and it tried to burn Malia alive. So I say we kill them.”

Scott nods. He’s probably sick of near-immolation too.

**Our monthly test of trying to raise the North American Facility has failed once again. Until we establish contact we have only guesswork on how to appease the risen Ancient One(s) and get it or them to slumber again. -Fruehauf**

It’s Stiles’ night to be sentry. It’s not only his night, of course. What’s left of Beacon Hills has been divided into squads. The rule is each squad donates one member for sentry duty per night. They’re not an army, dereliction of duty can’t be punished by a board of authorities. Still, it’s rare that anyone slacks. Stiles’ theory is that it’s two fold. The first part is the people who lived this long likely made it because they’re born survivors, and that’s not the type of person to not do what needs to be done. The second is the squad concept. It’s relatively easy to fuck over strangers by choosing your sleeping bag instead of pacing across concrete and chewing on caffeine pills. It’s hard to fuck over your team of ten, all of whom you know the life stories of.

Stiles generally doesn’t like being sentry. It’s not that he feels inferior compared to some of his friends with enhanced abilities. His night vision goggles work pretty well, as does his gun. It’s that being alone in the dark, quiet night makes his mind start whirring. The toxic mess his brain was post Nogitsune is nothing compared to what it’s like now.

Tonight though, he’s got a brief reprieve. Across the block -orange spray paint on the debris of imploded buildings designates it Zone 2- is an amazing distraction from some of his darker thoughts.

“Guys, guys. Wake up!”

They do, because these days to lag is to die. Everyone’s hands go directly for their weapons, even the squad members with easy violence laced into their shapeshifting ability. There are some monsters you don’t want to get close enough to to use claws or teeth.

“Where’s the archetype,” Scott is slurring from exhaustion but Stiles knows even if he can’t pry his sleep snot encrusted eyes open he’ll still have instinctual, deadly accuracy. 

“There’s no archetype.” 

Scott flops down, nearly snoring already. Malia looks distinctly unimpressed, hair matted to the side of her face. 

“No seriously, get up. You’re going to miss it.” Stiles lightly kicks Scott. “Squad three is having a lesbian orgy.” It’s better than anything he’s ever seen in a magazine, or online before the internet collapsed.

Thank god for small miracles, even the end of the world hasn’t cured Malia of her sex drive. She gets out of her warmth pile with Harley and Brett and comes to voyeur with him. They watch until it gets to them and they have their own orgy for two, possibly observed by a squad across the city with a telescope. You never know. Stiles has never really believed in privacy, and that was before the apocalypse tore down the moral norms of society.

It’s a nice moment. But when they’re both spent and have caught their breath Malia gets to go lay back down and Stiles still has hours of sentry left to go. The inability to have an afterglow is just another reason to hate the Ancient Ones, the archetypes, and especially the human betrayers of mankind; Marty and Dana.

Stiles hates Dana and Marty more than he can ever express. If his hate was an chemical it would be more corrosive than fluoroantimonic acid. Like the stuff the Mutant Hillbillies vomit. Not that they’ve met them yet, to experience the acidic barf personally. Of the thousand plus archetypes roaming the United States Stiles has seen maybe one hundred. His squad has managed to kill four. Anyway, back to his hate. He’s got it in spades. In fucking _spades_.

Some people would call him a hypocrite. Would say that if he was in the same situation, apocalypse looming in but having to murder a friend to prevent it, he’d’ve let the Ancient Ones rise too. To which Stiles says bullshit. Liam, Lydia, Allison, drag queen Lotta Buns, Parrish, ninety year old spinster neighbour, Derek; Stiles would have thrown any of them under the bus in an instant. Maybe even Scott. 

Maybe he couldn’t have. Maybe he’s wrong. But he’d like to think he would have. Besides, in all seriousness, if Scott knew the stakes in the hypothetical Stiles wouldn’t have to lay a finger, never mind touch a gun. Scott would have sacrificed himself for the world’s behalf. But thanks to Dana Unknown-last-name’s cowardice, the entire fucking planet is doomed to terror, pain, and depending on the dice, agonising death. And Stiles isn’t even sure if he considers the last a losing roll or not. He’s not the suicide type, but being done with this would be nice.

Four people had to die so the entire population wouldn’t suffer. Single digit numbers for nine billion. Anger at being picked, getting tricked, watching friends die- that Stiles can understand. He’s fine with Dana getting her vengeance by opening the cages, even though it’s half their current problem. But refusing to kill one single person to spare nine motherfucking million from the Ancient Ones? Damn straight Stiles hates. He walks the perimeter of Zone 3 and he hates, and he throws a hatchet at a snake so his squad will have breakfast and he hates, and he watches midnight lighten to dawn and he tamps down on his hate as much as he can because it’s important to wake his squad with a smile. The desperately furious part of him only comes out when he’s a sentry, otherwise it stays tucked away. No reason to make a bad situation worse by being nasty to the only nine people he gives a shit about anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> In case you were wondering:  
> -PETA really is a terrible disgusting organisation.  
> -Jeffrey pine trees (California native) have resin that's so flammable it's actually explosive.  
> -the acid mentioned is the most corrosive acid ever, so much so that it can't really be studied.
> 
> Research is fun :)


End file.
